Syntactical stylistics

Syntax deals with the patterns of word arrangement and formulates roles for correct sentence building. Sometimes a need arises to intensify the utterance and the normative structures are replaced by what is traditionally called rhetorical figures, figures of speech or syntactical stylistic devices. Patterns of such devices are well-known and they are systematised according to some principles. For example, I.R Galperin singles out the following principles: 1) compositional patterns of syntactical arrangement, 2) peculiar linkage, 3) particular use of colloquial constructions, 4) stylistic use of structural meaning. Here is a table showing the distribution of syntactical intensifiers.

Group 1. Patterns of syntactical arrangement	Inversion Detachment Parallelism Chiasmus Repetition (anaphora, epiphora, framing anadiplosis, chain repetition) Enumeration Suspense Climax Antithesis
Group 2. Peculiar linkage	Asyndeton Polysyndeton Gap-sentence link
Group 3. Colloquial constructions	Ellipsis Aposiopesis Question-in-the-Narrative Represented speech
Group 4. Stylistic use of structural meaning	Rhetorical question Litotes

Group 1. Arrangement

The English language is characterised by such specific syntactical feature as fixed word order. Normative is the following word order in a sentence, presented symbolically Subject, Predicate, Object, Modifier. Any shift from this word order results in some effect, and deviant structures can carry stylistic function.

Stylistic Inversion

Inversion (stylistic) (инверсия) is a syntactical stylistic device in which the direct word order is changed either completely so that the predicate precedes the subject (complete inversion), or partially so that the object precedes the subject-predicate pair (partial inversion)

Of all my old association, of all my old pursuits and hopes, of all the living and the dead world, this one poor soul alone comes natural to me. (Ch.Dickens)

To a medical student the final examinations are something like death ... (R.Gordon) - Для студента-медика выпускные экзамены - смерти подобны ...

•• aims at attaching logical stress or additional emotional colouring to the surface meaning of the utterance (I.R.G.)

Down dropped the breeze ... (Coleridge)

•• нарушение обычного порядка следования членов предложения, в результате которого какой-нибудь элемент отказывается выделенным и получает специальные коннотации эмоциональности и экспрессивности (I.V.A.)

Inversion or displacement of some component of a sentence aims at giving additional logical or emotional stress to the meaning of the utterance. Inversion may be complete - when the predicate is displaced, and partial with the displacement of secondary members of the sentence.

There are 5 structural types of inversion:

1) the object is placed in pre-position

e.g. Over everything she brooded and brooded:

2) the attribute is placed after the word it modifies

e.g. Spring begins with the first narcissus, rather cold and shy and wintry;

3) the predicative is placed before the subject

e.g. Shameless and fascinating the advertisements were;

4) the adverbial modifier is placed at the beginning of the sentence e.g. Weakly she climbed the stairs and opened the door;

5) both the modifier and predicate stand before the subject

e.g. There was a rustling m the bushes on his left and suddenly like a cuckoo from a nursery clock out popped a large black bird.